


Sing, My Little Sparrow, Sing

by Frayach



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Age Difference, M/M, Sexual Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-09
Updated: 2012-09-09
Packaged: 2017-11-13 21:43:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/508026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frayach/pseuds/Frayach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ever since his divorce from Ginny, Harry’s been going to a particular nightclub in a seedy part of Glasgow to relax. The singer on Saturday nights is Scorpius Malfoy, and he absolutely sucks. Nonetheless, Harry keeps going back, but not because he’s falling for Scorpius, of course. No, of course not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sing, My Little Sparrow, Sing

**Author's Note:**

> The [LJ Version](http://frayach.livejournal.com/99574.html) contains warnings.

The room darkened, and the audience hushed. A single spotlight came on with a loud clunk, and its beam fell on the rickety stage. Harry’s pulse quickened as though he was about to break down the door of an illegal potions lab. The crappy band started playing, and his breathing grew shallow. By the time the tall gorgeous blond walked onto the stage, Harry felt faint. He was dressed in a clinging silver gown sparkling with sequins. Fake diamonds circled his throat and dangled from his ears. Harry reached for his lager with an unsteady hand and emptied half the glass with a single swallow. The blond’s full lips were painted cherry red, and his eyelids with their long faux lashes glittered with eye shadow. His gown was slit up to his hip, revealing thigh-high stockings, and the heels of his stilettos were so high he stood on his toes like a ballerina. As he walked, his hips swaying invitingly, Harry felt blood flood his groin, and he shifted in his chair. He was close enough that he could smell the blond’s perfume and the faint hint of his sweat. Harry swallowed the remaining half of his lager as the gorgeous blond wrapped his fingers around the microphone with the same deliberateness with which one would wrap their fingers around a cock. Harry leaned forward as he parted his lips, took a deep breath, and began to . . . screech like a Banshee.

Harry winced. Dear God, how he _wished_ the boy could sing. If he could just keep his voice from cracking, Harry could pretend he kept coming back to the Olympia because he liked Billie Holiday. But the truth was Scorpius Malfoy, despite all his diamonds and sequins, couldn’t hit the right note if his life depended on it.

The manager of the Olympia didn’t seem to mind though. He ran the bar and grinned and tipped his ratty bowler hat as the patrons came flooding in. Scorpius packed the house on Saturday nights. Harry had to get there early if he wanted to avoid a queue and get his usual table near the stage. The crowd was mostly comprised of men. The only women present were obviously wives who suspected the real reason their husbands took them “out dancing” was to watch a pretty boy wobble around in high heels and warble tunelessly. It was astounded how many people braved being robbed or pickpocketed to drink cheap whisky and drool over a sixteen year-old in a slinky dress.

The Olympia was located in a part of Glasgow Harry hoped his own children didn’t know existed. An inky, crumbling acre of abandoned warehouses and clip joints, peopled by prostitutes and neds. The narrow cobbled lanes off Sauchiehall Street were potholed and strewn with rubbish while the soot-blackened buildings housed strip clubs, sex shops, below-pavement bars, and seedy hotels with the occasional chippy thrown into the mix. Above these quality establishments, were all-in-one flats with bent blinds or grimy lace curtains that swayed in the wind sneaking through their windows’ draughty casements. 

The interior of the Olympia was slightly less sleazy, although Harry never ate there and dreaded to imagine what the place looked like in daylight. Its atmosphere was an unconvincing hybrid of Bohemian Paris and Prohibition Era Chicago. The floor was made of gouged uneven planks, and the tables were small and circular and draped with stained, red velvet table cloths. Except for the stage lights, the only other illumination came from low-lit glass chandeliers and little lamps with beads dangling from their shades. The edges of the stage were made of chipped plaster fashioned into cupids and enormous gaudy flowers. Harry had never been there, but he imagined Scorpius’s dressing room was little larger than a broom closet.

How had one of Rowena’s chicks strayed so far from his turreted nest?

Harry wore a Glamour, of course. The _Prophet_ would pay a fortune for a photograph of the divorced Head Auror drinking too many pints of lager with his hand in his lap and his eyes glued to a schoolboy in a garter belt. The Glamour was different every week, and Harry was sure he wasn’t alone. Few wizards came more than once to the Olympia on Saturday nights – or at least it _appeared_ that way. Harry was certain Scorpius had a loyal following of men like him – middle-aged professionals with kids and wonky knees and bitter wives pining for their own youths. Even through their disguises, their expressions looked hunted by age and pinched with hunger. Most of them leaned back, keeping their faces shadowed, but a few sat on the edges of their chairs, their bodies rigid and their eyes bright like starved wolves as they licked their lips and dabbed at their foreheads with their serviettes. 

Harry, himself, leaned neither forward nor back, and his expression was the same he used in interrogations. Calm, unflappable and just a shade off cold. The only person who attempted to speak to him was his waitress. Everyone else wisely kept their distance. He didn’t want to hear them talk about what they’d do to Scorpius given half a chance. As it already was, his wand hand itched when he saw them leering and whispering. At the end of the day, Scorpius was a student – _his_ student. Harry didn’t need further provocation. He didn’t want to be banned from the Olympia on Saturday nights. He didn’t know what he’d do if he was. He wished he didn’t think he’d go mad – both from a desire to devour like the other wolves and an even fiercer desire to protect that no amount of lust or lager could overcome.

Harry had been Scorpius’s teacher since the boy was eleven. He’d watched him mature from a small first year who’d looked like he was nine to a stunning sixth year who looked like he’d walked straight off a Parisian runway and into Harry’s classroom every Wednesday at three o’clock. He’d hit puberty late, but even before he started looking at Harry like _that_ , he’d been desperate for Harry’s attention. Harry was told that in his other classes, Scorpius rarely spoke, but in Harry’s class, his hand was in the air almost as often as Hermione’s had been. He wasn’t a natural dueller, but he worked hard – so hard in fact that Harry wondered if his performance in his other classes might be suffering in order to accommodate his determination to be the best in Harry’s. It was achingly clear that he wanted Harry to look at him and talk to him and praise him. True, Scorpius wasn’t the only one who desired the attention of Harry Potter, but he was by far the most persistent and ingenious. When the others realised they’d never get Harry to treat them with favouritism, they gave up. Not Scorpius.

Before his first Christmas break, Scorpius had timidly approached him after class and handed him a box wrapped in parchment on which he’d tried to draw poinsettias (they’d looked more like green and red jellyfish than plants). To Harry’s discomfort, Scorpius stood there solemnly, watching Harry open his present. Inside there’d been a tree ornament shaped as a toy soldier that somehow the eleven year-old had charmed to sing carols in his own clear high choirboy voice. Harry later asked the Charms professor if she’d taught her first years how to imbue inanimate objects with the capacity to speak. She looked at him liked he’d been hitting the spiked eggnog too hard. Apparently it was the final assignment she assigned her seventh years – an assignment that most of them failed.

The singing tree ornament had been only the first of six years of holiday presents, but presents weren’t the only way Scorpius sought his attention. When he was thirteen, he started coming to the impromptu Quidditch matches Harry played on Wednesday evenings with other Hogwarts staff. It was sufficiently inappropriate that Harry had told him he needed to stop, and it looked like he had, but then one day Harry spotted him hiding under the stands with a pair of Omnioculars. Rather than embarrass the boy, Harry had stopped participating in the matches. But Scorpius was clever and resourceful. If Harry was ever in the same place twice at the same time, Scorpius would figure it out and be there when Harry arrived a third time. When the innocent stalking began, it’d been disconcerting. Now, it was perilous – for both of them. 

Scorpius must employ the same cleverness to slip past his Head of House every weekend to sing at the Olympia. Harry didn’t know and was afraid to find out. Perhaps he’d convinced his father he had a good reason for spending his weekends in Glasgow instead of Hogsmeade. God knows, Draco hadn’t thought highly of Hogwarts and its environs. Or maybe – Harry couldn’t bear to think about it – maybe he traded “favours” for his freedom. He was, after all, a very beautiful boy.

Harry signalled to the waitress that he was ready for another lager – anything to banish the thought of Scorpius on his knees before one of Harry’s fellow teachers. He wished he didn’t believe such things were possible, but time had made it clear that age desires nothing more than it desires youth. Regrettably, he knew from experience. His own dreams were haunted by Scorpius’s slender throat with its prominent Adam’s apple and the exaggerated sway of his boyish hips twinkling with sequins. He woke gasping and coming messily all over his stomach. The dreams weren’t frequent, but they left him wide awake, staring at the ceiling until dawn, furious with himself for craving innocence like an addict craves his opium.

And Scorpius was, indeed, innocent. His very presence at the Olympia on Saturday nights was evidence of that innocence. At some point someone told him he should dress up and sing, so he did, and then someone else saw him and suggested he sing “professionally,” and then that someone contacted someone else who made it happen because at the bottom of everything was a fuck tonne of Galleons. Scorpius was paying the Olympia’s rent with his terrible singing and his gowns with the slits up to the hip. He thought he was what others told him he was, and they told him he had the voice of a siren and the poise of a Hollywood starlet. The reality was that he had neither, but that didn’t matter to the men who bought him clothes and gave him a stage. What mattered to them was that Scorpius believe he was talented and remain ignorant of what _really_ packed the house.

And what _really_ packed the house was his coltish legs in thigh-high stockings and his bony chest in gowns designed for cleavage. Men didn’t return again and again to hear him sing, they came to imagine his pouty mouth slurping on their dicks like a lolly. They didn’t applaud wildly because Scorpius awed them with his voice. They applauded because his skinny adolescent body had a man’s cock. They didn’t demand an encore because Scorpius was the next Sade, they demanded an encore because they wanted to get off under the table one more time before the lights came on and they had to return to the shitty flats they’d moved into after their wives kicked them out.

Harry, too, had a shitty flat and got off before he went home to it, but unlike the men around him, his wife hadn’t kicked him out. The flat was on the third floor of a nondescript building in a forgettable London neighbourhood. Plants Hermione had given him to “brighten things up” sat dead and brown on his window sills. The corners of the lino in the kitchen and bathroom were curling, and even the strongest _Scourify_ couldn’t make a dent in the accumulated grease on the wall and worktop where the ancient fryer sat. It had a fridge and a toilet and a shower, though. At this point in his life – after once having had everything and losing it – Harry didn’t feel like he needed anything more.

 _Jesus, Harry_ , Ginny said on the rare occasions she stopped by to give him the mail that still came to the house. _I hope you tidy up when the kids are with you_. He never bothered to tell her that the kids were even bigger slobs than he was. It was amazing how much Fanta they could spill on the carpet in the lounge and the amount of crumbs they could get on the settee while they played Muggle videogames and ignored his attempts to interest them in more wholesome activities. He suspected Ginny indulged them as much as he did. The kids weren’t still living at home, but Harry and Ginny knew the divorce had impacted them even though, unlike Ron and Hermione’s marriage, theirs hadn’t exploded spectacularly like a figgy pudding struck by an _Expulso_.

Rather it’d been the opposite. Their union had died by slow exsanguination until it was bloodless and cold. The day Lily boarded the train to Hogwarts for the first time, he and Ginny went home, got drunk, and decided who’d get what. They’d stayed drunk for the next three days as they divided more than two decades worth of jointly acquired possessions. Ginny got the house. Harry got the car. Ginny got the children for the Christmas holiday. Harry got them for Easter. Ginny got them for June. Harry got them for July, and they agreed they’d work out August each year when the time came. They’d cried a lot, but they’d also laughed a lot. When all of his things were packed and the boxes shrunk, they’d made love more passionately than they had in years. Afterward, Ginny had stood in the doorway in her dressing gown, watching as he drove away. Before he’d lost sight of her in the rear view mirror, she’d gone back inside and closed the door.

And that had been that. They were on friendly terms and spoke regularly about the children, but she was dating someone new, and he wasn’t, and it was awkward as hell.

He flinched at the thought of her finding out about his Saturday nights. In fact, he flinched at the thought of _anyone_ finding out. He even flinched at himself. Sunday mornings were spent running and doing push-ups in Hyde Park as though he could sweat last night’s memories through his pores and then wash them away in the shower. He was ashamed of his dreams and even more ashamed of his fantasies. But yet he kept coming back week after week after week after week.

Sometimes he thought about Owling Draco. He was sure Draco had no idea what Scorpius got up to on Saturday nights. A few of the men who came to the Olympia were Muggles; Draco would die if he knew they came in their pants watching his heir wobble around on a stage singing horribly. But Owling Draco would mean an end to Harry’s Saturday nights out. The ink wouldn’t be dry on the parchment before he’d _Incendio_ it. As much as he loathed himself for it, Harry needed the Olympia like he needed air to breathe.

Draco. Harry saw him infrequently, but every time he did, Draco was cordial and inscrutable. Like his father, he’d aged well, and like his father he’d perfected the art of polite insincerity. Harry found himself missing the cocky, cowardly bully. But from the few times he’d seen them together, it was obvious that Scorpius was the shining centre of Draco’s universe. His hand was always on the base of Scorpius’s neck, and no matter how he appeared to be trying, he was unable to disguise his pride in his exceptional son. Harry knew the feeling. He felt the same way when he watched Lily fly and James duel and Al win one academic award after another. It would break Draco’s heart . . . no, worse: It would destroy him utterly if he knew that only time and luck stood between his beloved child and a brutal rape in a filthy hotel room.

Harry shuddered with horror at the thought and then raised his glass and drank half of his lager in one swallow. Above him, Scorpius strutted and warbled like a gawky glittering fledgling. Harry was certain it was no accident that the gown his handlers had him wearing tonight was so tight that the shape and size of his handsomely proportioned cock were obvious. He was wearing a Marilyn Monroe wig and even sported the dead pin-up’s mole. He was so sexy that he made Harry’s teeth and the roots of his hair ache as though he had the flu. Every cell in his body longed for his gorgeous student, and he found himself once again trying to convince himself that “educating” Scorpius in more than just defence tactics would be the ultimate in generosity. He would never touch Scorpius with anything but tenderness and care. He’d introduce Scorpius to his own capacity for pleasure as well as his capacity to please another. He would only take Scorpius when he was ready to be taken and not a moment sooner.

He might even let himself fall in love, and _that_ was the biggest danger of all. 

He wasn’t unaware that the temptations he was flirting with could result in a catastrophe of epic proportions. He cursed the day he’d asked Scorpius when his birthday was because now he caught himself counting the weeks and days before Scorpius came of age. He wouldn’t be the first, and he certainly wouldn’t be the last, teacher who invited a student to their office for a “happy seventeenth birthday” fuck . . .

Harry squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth against the groan that wanted to escape at the thought of asking Scorpius to join him for a celebratory glass of Firewhisky. He could practically see Scorpius’s wide eyes when Harry touched his cheek and brushed his bottom lip with the pad of his thumb. And he could imagine Scorpius’s eyelids fluttering closed when Harry leaned forward to kiss him. What happened next would all depend on Scorpius’s reaction: if he shied away, Harry would stop, but if he responded . . . Oh, God, if he responded, Harry would make love to him for hours . . . days . . . weeks . . . maybe even whole bloody _years_.

Which was precisely why he’d already drafted his resignation letter. This would be his last year as a visiting DADA professor. And the Saturday night before Scorpius’s seventeenth birthday would be his last night at the Olympia. He’d finally send an Owl to Draco, and dig and scrounge until he found a reason – any reason at all – to raid the Olympia and shut it down. Potions, prostitution, illegal pornography. Harry was sure he and his Aurors could uncover _something_.

And then he’d give Scorpius the lecture to end all lectures. It would be legendary and unforgettable. If he couldn’t teach Scorpius how to have sex, he’d at least lecture him on its perils: 

_Word has reached me, Mr Malfoy, that you spent every Saturday night of your sixth year dressed like a transvestite traipsing about in a part of Glasgow where you were lucky you didn’t get your throat cut. Don’t roll your eyes, young man. I’ve been an Auror far longer than you’ve been alive. Do you really believe I haven’t been called to that part of town at least a thousand times? You’re naïve, Mr Malfoy, and that naivety will make you a victim one of these days – if not of murder than of rape or slavery. Think that couldn’t happen? I arrested a producer of torture and snuff porn just last week. The idiot Banished a body rather than Vanished it, and it ended up in a poor old witch’s garden in Cricklewood. And don’t think for a second that your father could save you. Your father knows the ins and outs of the Ministry and Europe’s banking districts like the back of his hand, but I doubt he’s ever been within sniffing distance of Wellpark Brewery. He’d come to me to find you, and when I did, and you were brutalised – or worse – his and your mother’s hearts would break beyond repair. Do you really want to do that to the people who gave you life and love and everything they had? Do you really want to be front-page news? Don’t think for a second that the photographers will have the decency to refrain from photographing your corpse in a pool of blood, your pretty dress torn and soiled and your legs splayed with one foot bare and the other still wearing a pink platform sandal. “Malfoy Heir Found Dead In East End.” And just like that your future will be snuffed out. You’ll be just another statistic in the DMLE cold case files. You won’t be a promising young man; you’ll be a cadaver in a morgue. Mark my word, Mr Malfoy. I don’t give a shrivelled fig that you’re seventeen and of age, if I see you somewhere seedy and dangerous, I will arrest you so fast that it’ll make your head spin, and what’s more, your father will_ thank _me for it. Because bailing you out of a holding cell and threatening to withhold your inheritance is a hell of a lot better than organising a funeral and entombing you next to your grandfather. Don’t think that I’m bluffing, Mr Malfoy. If I_ ever _find out you’re still singing at the Olympia – or anywhere else for that matter, I will personally make your life a living breathing hell on earth_.

And then, if he really wanted to be honest, he might even tell Scorpius that inside every middle-aged man in the audience was a schoolboy longing to do the things he didn’t do when he was actually a schoolboy. There were thighs to be spread with hands made brave by alcohol. There were nipples to be played with and mouths to be kissed. There were wet dreams to be starred in, and virgin holes to be fingered and virgin clits and cocks to be sucked. There were a thousand opportunities to be “the first” in a thousand different ways, and every man in the room wanted to be just that.

May God forgive him, Harry did too. He wanted to be Scorpius’s first _everything_ , but it was hard to accomplish when he had boundaries he would not cross and values he would not abandon. Albus was Scorpius’s age. Half of the time Albus was a defiant adversary, and half of the time he was the same sweet little boy who wanted to be snuggled and read stories. Harry’s rational brain knew it was no different for Scorpius. Half of Scorpius had packed his bags and set out on the road to manhood, and half of him was the boy who ran around chasing peacocks in the garden. Middle-aged men like Harry had no business waylaying him to glut themselves on his innocence – no matter how much his eyes begged for it and his young body betrayed his only half-understood desires.

With a new glass of lager on the table in front of him, Harry felt steady enough to gaze unflinchingly at the boy on the stage. Scorpius looked too young in his Ravenclaw uniform but just old enough in his clinging gown. It was becoming more and more difficult to separate the Saturdays from the Wednesdays. Harry spent his Saturday nights with his cock pleasantly swollen and his Wednesday afternoons uncomfortably aware of his groin. On Saturday nights, he discreetly touched himself under the table cloth, and on Wednesday afternoons he bit the inside of his cheek until it was tender. On Saturday nights, he could see the swell of Scorpius’s cock through his gown, and on Wednesday afternoons he imagined it in the confines of Scorpius’s trousers. On Saturday nights he was an old letch who stared unabashedly, and on Wednesday afternoons he was Professor Potter. If it wasn’t for his “unassailable character” and his “revered reputation,” he might’ve already succumbed. Scorpius used every lame excuse in the book to be alone with him. He needed clarification on an assignment. He had questions too detailed and in-depth to ask in class. Every time Scorpius knocked on the door of Harry’s office and entered skittishly at Harry’s invitation, it grew harder and harder not to tell him to close the door behind him. Every time he offered Scorpius a cup of tea or a glass of water, it grew harder and harder not to offer him whisky as well. Every time Scorpius asked him to explain something Harry had already explained, it grew harder and harder not to call his game and give him what he thought he wanted.

Men are supposed to get stronger as they age, but they don’t. If anything, they grow weaker. Temptations that used to merely titillate now consume whole regions of the soul. When Harry was in his twenties, Scorpius would’ve merely amused. When he was in his thirties, Scorpius would’ve been nothing more than a wank fantasy when his wife wasn’t in the mood. But in his forties, Scorpius was a ripe peach that made Harry’s mouth water. Scorpius was a necessity, not a luxury. He was what made Harry hard when nothing else could. He was the oasis for which Harry would stagger over vast burning dunes.

Unsurprisingly, it all got worse after his divorce. The thought of Scorpius’s innocence being taken used to bother him; now it enflamed him. Nothing but sobriety came between him and the fat balding man who approaches Scorpius between sets with a purse bulging with Galleons. Nothing but pity came between him and the man at the next table who has his fly open and his dick out. Nothing but his desire to protect his family came between him and the backstage door.

And what would he do behind that backstage door in Scorpius’s broom closet-sized dressing room?

Merlin, the better question was what _wouldn’t_ he do?

There were some things he knew for sure he would do: He’d remove his Glamour and hold a finger against his lips when Scorpius gasped in surprise. _No words_ , he’d say as he reached out to take Scorpius’s hand and pull him close. Scorpius would feel good in his arms, and Harry would run his hands up and down his back from his neck to his tailbone. Without prompting, Scorpius would put his arms around Harry and look with wide questioning eyes into Harry’s own. Harry would respond by sliding his fingers into Scorpius’s hair and pulling him into a demanding kiss. He’d take control and make it clear what he was there for – what he wanted. He’d slide his other hand down until it cupped one of Scorpius’s buttocks. The sequins of Scorpius’s gown would be rough under his palm. The kiss would be relentless; Harry would fill Scorpius’s mouth with his tongue and slide his other hand down Scorpius’s back. He’d gather the fabric of Scorpius’s gown in his fingers and tug it up to his waist. By then, Scorpius would be hard. Harry would get on his knees and peel Scorpius’s satin panties down to the middle of his thighs and free Scorpius’s cock. God, it would be gorgeous! And something told Harry he’d have no pubic hair. The couple of female impersonators Harry had been with hadn’t. Scorpius’s balls would be as silky smooth as his cock and he’d smell _so_ good. Harry would lick and suck him until Scorpius put his hands on either side of Harry’s head and strained to go deeper. Harry would let him. By then he’d be craving the taste of Scorpius’s come. Scorpius wouldn’t surprise him – there’d be plenty of warning. His body would tremble and his hips would jerk between Harry’s hands. He’d cry out as he filled Harry’s mouth with quick hot spurts. Harry would keep sucking him until he shuddered with overstimulation, and then he’d look up. Scorpius would be staring down at him in awe, his face flushed beneath the powder and rouge. Harry would pull Scorpius’s panties up and straighten his gown. He’d stand and kiss Scorpius deeply, making sure Scorpius tasted his come. He’d step back with his hands still on Scorpius’s shoulders and look at him for a long time, drinking in the sight of his sated arousal. And then, he’d turn and leave before he could fuck him because Harry wouldn’t fuck him. Not even in his fantasies did he allow himself to fuck Scorpius. Not even in his wildest dreams.

And there were also things he knew that he _might_ do: After kissing Scorpius and pulling his gown up to his waist, Harry might pick him up and sit him down on whatever flat surface was available. He’d start kissing Scorpius again hungrily and reach between Scorpius’s legs. Scorpius would be hard and his panties wet. Harry would move the crotch to the side. _Grab your thighs and pull them toward you_ , he’d say roughly, commandingly. He’d whisper a lubricating charm, and Scorpius would be momentarily startled by the sensation. Harry would soothe him with murmured words as he massaged Scorpius’s sphincter, revelling in the slick tight puckered flesh and the way it flexed open involuntarily now and then. Scorpius would gasp when Harry slowly but insistently began pressing the tip of his finger into his anus. God, it would feel so tight! The moment he felt Scorpius’s body start to relax around the intrusion inside it, Harry would start fingering him. He’d slide his finger in and out, making sure to push in far enough on each in-stroke that he could rub the swell of his prostate. Scorpius’s whole body would react to the overwhelming sensation, and Harry would swallow his cry with a kiss. _Touch yourself_ , he’d murmur against Scorpius’s lips. Scorpius would blush, but when he realised how serious Harry was, he’d hesitantly remove his gorgeous cock from his soaked panties and wrap his fingers around it. Harry would gaze, mesmerised, as the foreskin hid the pink head and then revealed it again, over and over as Scorpius stroked himself. He’d match the speed of his fingering with the jerks of Scorpius’s hand and watch Scorpius gradually come completely undone. One of the straps of his gown would slip off his shoulder, and Harry would lean forward and mouth his throat and nip his collarbone. The muscles in Scorpius’s thighs would tense, and his head would fall back as his body started to tremble with tension. Harry would abruptly stop sliding his finger in and out and instead push it into him as deep as it could go. The light pressure he’d apply to Scorpius’s prostate, combined with the speed with which Scorpius would be stroking his cock, would push him over the edge, and he’d come all over his belly and rucked-up gown. His channel would clench and then spasm around Harry’s finger, and he’d cry out Harry’s given name. Harry would gently withdraw his finger and hold Scorpius close as Scorpius shuddered and gasped, clinging to Harry’s back and clutching Harry’s shirt in his hands. _God, baby,_ Harry would groan. _You are so gorgeous_. Scorpius would laugh breathlessly, and Harry would kiss him, all the while trying with all his might not to tell Scorpius that he, Harry, is falling madly hopelessly in love with him.

Harry sighed as his fantasies retreated before the relentless invasion of the real world. All around him, the men were getting drunker and their laughter louder. The waitress came to his table and asked him if we wanted one more lager before the bar closed. The night was almost over. Harry needed desperately to come, but he would _not_ make himself come under the tablecloth. That was another Rubicon he would not cross. Instead he stood and made his way casually to the loo where he locked himself in a stall, opened his trousers, squirted a dollop of the lube he carried in his pocket on Saturday nights into his palm, squeezed his eyes shut and jerked off until he came with a deep groan into a handful of toilet paper. Afterward he splashed his face with cold water and dried it. When he left the loo, he felt calmer, more relaxed, less drugged with need and lust.

Which was a good thing. It was time to stop being a lonely man aching for a kiss and some company and time to go back to being Harry Potter – the teacher, the Auror, the protector and not the predator. If he ever went backstage, it would be to save Scorpius from being assaulted or robbed or, Merlin forbid, raped . . .

He wished he didn’t want it to happen. He wished he didn’t want to save Scorpius, to feel Scorpius’s grateful arms holding him tight and his trembling voice saying “Thank you, Mr Potter. _Thank you_.”

Harry looked at his watch as he walked back to his table. Scorpius’s act was nearly over. He’d left the stage and wouldn’t return until the audience’s clapping and stamping made the chandeliers sway and the glasses rattle behind the bar. Then he’d come out to “sing” one last song and then disappear into his dressing room as the house lights came on. Harry would swallow the last of his lager, gather his coat, walk to the nearest alley and Apparate home. Then he’d spend the rest of the night hating himself until dawn when he could run and run and run until he was ill. Until he’d paid his penitence. Or at least a fraction of it.

By the time he reached his table, the clamour for Scorpius’s return had reached a fevered crescendo. The men were banging their pint glasses on their tables and yelling for him. Harry frowned. Scorpius never made them wait for so long. He glanced at the manager. He did not look happy.

Harry’s stomach lurched sickeningly, and his blood ran cold through veins suddenly constricted by panic. Something was wrong. His heart leapt into his throat and stuck there; it felt like it was pounding against his Adam’s apple as though his larynx was a punching bag. He couldn’t breathe. Adrenaline coursed through him, flooding his chest. His worst fear had come to life! Scorpius was in danger! Harry had to save him!

He took a deep breath and then another. He had to remember that as an Auror, he’d done similar things a thousand times. The only thing that made the situation different was that he knew – and loved – the victim. He had to remain calm. Discreetly, so as to not induce a panic, he drew his wand and walked up the stairs onto the stage as casually as urgency permitted. For a second he found himself standing exactly where Scorpius stood. It was sweltering under the spotlights, and beyond the first row of tables, he could see nothing but shadows. This was Scorpius’s world on Saturday nights. Heat and sweat and catcalls from invisible men . . . It was no place for a child.

As he neared the back of the stage, a bouncer tried to stop him from going behind the curtain. Harry asked him politely to step aside. When he didn’t, Harry merely had to think _Stupify_ , and the burly man fell to the floor like a ragdoll. Harry shoved his way through heavy swaths of hanging velvet until he stumbled into a maze of dimly lit corridors. He wrenched open door after door, moving swiftly and soundlessly. Scorpius’s changing room had to be behind one them. His ears strained for the sound of voices – or even worse of an _Apparition_ , but other than the din coming from the audience, everything was eerily quiet.

And then he heard it. A boy’s voice. _Scorpius’s voice_!

Harry sprinted toward it, knocking over freestanding wardrobes and clothing racks and barrelling around corners. Where the fuck was he? Harry would’ve called his name except that it would alert Scorpius’s attackers to his presence and they might Apparate with him – or even worse, kill him to shut him up. Harry’s breath was shallow, and his chest ached; he clutched his wand so tightly his knuckles were white. No one would hurt Scorpius and survive. Even if he was relieved of his post for use of excessive force, Harry would kill them. There was no doubt in his mind. He knew he would.

At last, he found a closed door and heard Scorpius’s voice behind it. Harry cast off his Glamour; let the motherfuckers know who they were dealing with! Let them look in Harry’s eyes and realise they were going to die – quickly if they hadn’t yet raped Scorpius and very _very_ slowly if they had. Without bothering to warn the bastards, Harry shouted a blasting spell and reduced the door to splinters and sawdust. Harry heard Scorpius scream. He pointed his wand at a loaming figure and killed him without even having to speak the words. Instead of crumbling to the floor, the figured exploded into a thousand pieces.

Holy _shit_! Harry thought. He would’ve frightened himself if he’d had time to feel anything except panic and rage.

“It’s okay, Scorpius!” he shouted as he waved his wand, Vanishing the sawdust that obscured his vision. “I’m here; it’s okay!” 

And then the air was clear and everything was silent and Scorpius was cringing in a corner looking terrified and . . .

. . . there was no one else there. Harry wheeled around, his experienced eyes searching wildly for the faint outline of a Disillusionment spell or the tingle in the air left behind after an Apparition. 

Nothing. No blood, no hastily discarded wands, no weapons. Nothing. Well, nothing except for the blasted mannequin he’d AKed. 

Harry closed his eyes as the realisation sunk in. Nobody had been there. Nobody had been attacking Scorpius. Panic and aggression gave way to embarrassment so abruptly that he had to lean against the wall or fall down.

“Mr Potter,” Scorpius said in a trembling frightened voice. “What’s going on? What have I done?”

Slowly, Harry opened his eyes and prayed that his blush wasn’t as obvious as it felt. Scorpius was cowering, his hands covering his chest as though he actually did have a woman’s tits.

Harry cleared his throat. “Nothing,” he said hoarsely. “I thought you were in danger. The crowd’s been waiting longer than usual.”

Great. Now the boy knew Harry had been watching the show. Fucking _great_.

It was Scorpius’s turn to blush.

“I . . . I know,” he said. “I . . . my zipper is stuck.”

Harry stared at him. The whole situation was getting worse by the second.

“Your what?”

“My zipper. In the back. It’s stuck, and I can’t reach it.”

Harry closed his eyes again. This was what he’d been reduced to – imagining that Scorpius was being attacked just so he’d have an excuse to come back here and save him and then hold him in his arms. While in reality . . .

. . . in reality it was much ado about a stuck zipper.

“Why didn’t you Banish the gown?” Harry asked, opening his eyes. His voice sounded weary and defeated. He let go of the wall and straightened his shirt.

Scorpius blushed again. “Uhm, I was just about to when you . . . uhm, when you came in.”

Harry ran his hand through his no-doubt wild looking hair and snorted ruefully. “You mean when I blasted down the door. Here, I’ll help you.”

Scorpius emerged from the corner he’d squeezed himself into. “Uhm, okay,” he said timidly. “Thanks.” He turned and presented his skinny back to Harry.

“Er, up or down?”

“Up. I was changing into a new dress for the encore.”

This was the moment, Harry supposed. This was the moment that he placed his hands on Scorpius’s shoulders and turned him around. This was the moment Harry kissed him and cupped his arse and pulled Scorpius’s groin against his own. This was the moment. It was now or never. Harry reached out . . .

. . . and tugged at the zipper until it unstuck.

What a hero.

Scorpius turned and smiled shyly at him. “Thanks,” he said.

Harry tried to swallow back a flood of humiliation and desire and self-loathing.

“You’re welcome,” he said.

Scorpius moved to pass him, but Harry grabbed his arm.

“You can go out and sing an encore,” he said, “but I’ll be waiting backstage to take you back to Hogwarts . . .”

Scorpius opened his mouth, but Harry hushed him sternly.

“You have no business being away from school unchaperoned. Does your father know you do this?”

Scorpius paled and shook his head.

“Please don’t tell him, sir,” he pleaded. “He’d _kill_ me!”

“Better he ‘kill’ you than one of those blokes out there,” Harry snapped, nodding in the direction of the increasingly angry shouts and demands.

“They wouldn’t . . .”

“Bollocks,” Harry said, squeezing Scorpius’s arm till the boy flinched. “You have no idea who’s out there. No have no idea what they might do.”

He would’ve laughed at the irony if he didn’t want to bang his head against the wall like a house-elf that’d displeased its master.

“You’re only sixteen, Scorpius. You have no idea what you’re playing at.”

“I’m singing,” Scorpius said indignantly. 

Harry took a deep breath. Should he tell him? Should he tell Scorpius what a dreadful singer he was? Crushing him like that would be cruel . . . but it might also keep him safe. And keeping him safe was what really mattered. Scorpius was young. He’d find another dream to pursue – hopefully one that didn’t require taking the Knight Bus to some cheap nightclub in a hellhole of letches and louts. 

“Er, uhm,” Harry stammered. “You see, it’s like this, Scorpius. You really can’t . . . you really need some singing lessons.”

Scorpius stared at him. “You mean I suck,” he said flatly.

Harry held up his hands and shook his head. “No, uhm, no, you don’t ‘suck’ per se, you just . . . er . . . need a little . . . instruction or something.”

Scorpius lowered his head. Suddenly, he looked like a sad little flower wilting in its sparkly vase. Harry felt his heart break. He wanted so badly to hold him and pet his hair and buy him some Chocolate Frogs or an ice cream or something.

“Listen,” he said. “Why don’t I see what I can do? I know a lot of people. Maybe, I can find you a . . .”

Scorpius just shook his head. “I suck at duelling, and now I suck at singing. What else do I suck at, Mr Potter? Go ahead. Feel free to tell me.”

Harry swallowed. Here was The Reason he counted the hours until Saturday night; here was The Star of his fantasies – The One he’d been falling in love with gradually enough that he could pretend it was lust and nothing more. In short, here was Everything He Desired standing right there in front of him, crying and sniffling because Harry had snuffed out his dreams.

Great. Just fucking great.

“C’mere,” he said roughly. He pulled Scorpius to him and wrapped his arms around Scorpius’s back as the boy sobbed against his shoulder. It was what Harry had wanted to do so much for so long, but there was no joy in it. Scorpius was shaking all over but out of pain, not of pleasure. And it was Harry’s fault.

“I’ve only wanted . . . I’ve only ever wanted you to like me,” Scorpius hic-cupped. “You treat me so coldly, so different from the others. It’s like you never want to be around me. I feel . . . I feel like I can’t do anything right in your eyes.”

Harry closed his eyes, cursing God for the temptation He’d burdened him with. He turned his head slightly so he could whisper into Scorpius’s ear.

“That’s not true. You . . . you’re a very good student . . .”

Scorpius stopped crying and pulled away. He looked horrible. His make-up was ruined and mascara-stained tears streaked his face.

“Thanks,” he said dully.

They stood in an awkward silence for a painfully long time until it was interrupted by a loud knock on the door.

“Come in,” Harry said. He was unsurprised when the manager barged in, red-faced with fury.

“What the hell . . .?” he shouted at Scorpius, but then he noticed Harry. “Auror Potter!” he exclaimed, scrabbling to remove his bowler hat and bowing as though Harry was the Queen.

Harry sighed. “The one and only,” he said. “Go out there and tell those people the show’s over and not just for tonight. Mr Malfoy isn’t coming back, and if I find out he does, I will arrest you and everyone associated with this establishment for exploiting a minor.”

“A minor?” the man sputtered. “He said he was eighteen!”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Don’t they all? Don’t bother telling me you tried to verify his claim. You didn’t. You didn’t want to find out the truth and lose your pretty piece of jail bait. Now go out there and tell those arseholes to go home.”

The manager darted out of the room, and soon Harry heard him shouting at the unruly crowd. He turned back to Scorpius who was standing with his arms clutched around his middle.

“C’mon,” Harry said. “Clean up and change. I’ll be out in the hall waiting.”

“To take me back to Hogwarts,” Scorpius said dully.

“That’s right,” Harry said.

He sheathed his wand and turned toward the door, but he stopped at the sound of Scorpius’s voice.

“Do you . . . do you think I’m even a little tiny bit attractive?”

It was Harry’s turn to let his head fall forward in defeat. How the fuck was he supposed to answer? Certainly not with the truth. No matter how much he wanted to.

“It’s not appropriate for a teacher and a man more than twice your age to comment on your appearance,” he said without turning around. “Now, please change so we can get out of here.”

He walked out and closed the door and leaned against the opposite wall with his head back and his eyes squeezed shut as he tried to keep himself from crying out of sheer frustration. He knew what it was going to be like from here on forward: He wouldn’t quit his position as a visiting DADA teacher. He’d grow up and move out of his shitty flat. He’s start dating women – _real_ women. He’d put this whole thing behind him and forget about it. It’d been a midlife crisis. Nothing more. And he’d get over it. He had to. He didn’t have a choice.

He raised his head when Scorpius emerged from the dressing room. His face was free of make-up, and he was wearing his Ravenclaw uniform. He could ask what Harry had been doing at the Olympia in the first place, but Harry knew he wouldn’t. He also knew Scorpius wouldn’t be giving him any more presents or seeking him out for “clarification” on any more assignments.

He was shattered and relieved in equal measure.

“Ready?” he said as though he was trying to get his kids out of a Quidditch supply store.

Scorpius nodded but didn’t look up at him. “Yup.”

“Good. Take my arm.”

Scorpius did but without enthusiasm. An instant later, they were standing at the castle’s gates, and Harry sent his Patronus to Neville. The ensuing silence was agonising. Scorpius looked down at the road and kicked morosely at the gravel while Harry looked up at the sky and counted the stars. When Neville finally arrived after a million years, Harry told him to take Mr Malfoy to Ravenclaw tower. Neville looked at him quizzically.

“Found him window shopping on Oxford Street,” Harry said.

Neville looked at his watch. “Little late for that, eh Mr Malfoy? I hope you weren’t getting into mischief.”

Scorpius glanced at Harry’s face, but Harry kept his expression disinterested and slightly annoyed.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “But I’m pretty sure his father wouldn’t be pleased if he heard about it, so let’s just keep this between the three of us.”

He looked at Scorpius. The boy nodded and then dropped his head.

“Sounds good to me,” Neville said cheerfully. “Dealing with Draco isn’t my favourite pastime.”

Harry snorted. Indeed.

Neville placed his hand on Scorpius’s shoulder. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you back to your tower. I’ll talk to your Head of House. I doubt he’ll decide to punish you. I imagine being discovered by the Head Auror in a place you shouldn’t be and making him bring you back here is punishment enough. Good to see you, Harry. Dinner at the Broomsticks on Wednesday?”

“As always,” Harry said but without enthusiasm. Scorpius looked broken. It was going to take a long time for him to recover from the night’s events.

It was going to take a long time for Harry, too. Probably even longer. It hadn’t sunk in yet . . . the fact that there’d be no more Saturday nights at the Olympia and no more “stalking” by Scorpius. Another part of his life had come to an end. If he had no clue what the next part might be, he’d figure it out eventually. He had to.

Neville and Scorpius began to walk away. Scorpius never said a word, but he did turn around once. Starlight glinted on his hair and in his tear-filled eyes. He was so very lovely. Someday he’d be somebody’s. Harry hoped he never had to know.

He gave Scorpius a little wave, but Scorpius didn’t wave back. It was okay. It was the way things were supposed to be – all the same Harry put a hand over his eyes and grieved for a moment for what _might_ have been.

 

_Six years later . . ._

The moment the limousine pulled up, the night erupted in a lightning storm of cameras. Harry watched from a distance as the driver got out and opened the back door. The crowd of fans went wild as one long leg in stilettos as red as a phone box emerged from the dark interior. The driver held out his hand and took a hand in elbow-length satin gloves. Slowly, precise in his every move, the world famous pop star allowed himself to be helped onto the pavement. His crimson sequined gown glittered in the flash of cameras, and he graciously turned his head toward the photographers’ shouted pleas.

Despite being nothing but a bystander, Harry gripped his wand and scanned the crowd for anything unusual. He laughed at himself. Lady Scorpion had a million body guards – both Muggle and magical. He didn’t need a forty-eight year-old Auror making a scene.

The gown he wore was particularly stunning. It was backless and slit up to the waist on one side. He moved with effortless grace, now and then blowing kisses to his fans. He looked glowingly happy, and it was no wonder: His latest single was at the top of the charts in both the Muggle and Wizarding worlds. It was impossible to go anywhere without encountering his soaring stunning voice.

The pop star made his way to the concert hall’s back entrance, stopping now and then to sign autographs and pose for photos with his fans. Harry had seen him do the same thing on television, and he looked as comfortable and at home live as he on the many red carpets he walked in every major city around the world. He was clearly in her element.

When at last he disappeared, Harry sheathed his wand and made his way to the main entrance. At the door, he gave the attendant his ticket and went to his seat. He was surrounded by people a fraction of his age who shrieked and stomped and yelled every time a stage hand appeared to fix the spotlights or fiddle with the sound system. Harry felt an overpowering urge to cast a Glamour, but he’d promised himself he wouldn’t. The audience was mostly made up of Muggles, and even if there were witches or wizards present, he really didn’t give a shit. He was enjoying a show. Nothing more. It would make for a very dull newspaper article . . .

. . . although the gift he’d sent to the dressing room wouldn’t be dull news. In fact, if anyone found out about it, the _Prophet_ ’s presses would overheat and breakdown. They wouldn’t be able to produce enough copies no matter how many people they hired to cast duplicating charms. It wasn’t the modest bouquet that would get everyone in a furore; it was the note that accompanied it spelled to be visible for one pair of eyes only.

 _I hear you like the opera_ , it read. _I have two tickets to Madame Butterfly and a private box. Bring an appetite because I’ll have Butterbeer and a picnic dinner. It’s not a date – unless you want it to be. I don’t mind either way. I just want to see you. In the meantime, I’m in the audience tonight. Lily tells me her favourite song of yours is “Don’t Let Me Go Next Time.” I’ve read the lyrics, and I suspect I know who they’re about. I’m not as thick as you might think I am. I never have been. And if you’ll give me another chance, I won’t do it again – let you go, I mean. I’m yours if you’ll have me._

Harry smiled and leaned back in his seat. When the lights went out, his pulse started racing just as it used to all those years ago at the Olympia. By the time the music started, he was breathless and slightly faint. He gripped his armrests like he always did on Muggle planes as Scorpius emerged to an ecstatic uproar. He looked out at his adoring audience with a smouldering haughty gaze and spread his arms dramatically like wings. The music surged and he opened his mouth.

“Sing, my little sparrow, sing,” Harry murmured.

And he did.


End file.
